Welcome to my blog.

Below is where you'll find what I've been up to recently. Everything from weddings I've covered to people I've come across on my travels that could help you out when planning your special day (plus the occasional mermaid).

The day started when I turned up to the most relaxing preparations I have ever been to. Having lived in Marple all my life I arrived at a small road that I never knew existed. Chelsea was sat watching tv eating a salad and informed me that one of the many dogs (pictured... many pictures... they were adorable) had chewed her shoe and was not one iota bothered.

Afterwards, it was over to Hyde Bank Farm in Romiley, Stockport.

The layout at Hyde Bank Farm is ideal. Ceremony upstairs, reception downstairs in the converted barn. The window behind the top table fills the room with a daylight and it made for great speech shots.

It all ended with some exceptional dance moves on the dance floor. It was great bumping in to some friends and sticking around for a lovely cold beer afterwards. I can't thank Chelsea and Chris enough for letting me cover their day!

P.S Strangely enough, the full name of the groom was just mentioned on BBC Radio 6 on the Shaun Keavney show. I must check in with him how well he knows his "songs with key changes".

It was an absolute pleasure to be asked to cover the opening of Manchester-based restaurateurs, Proove's new restaurant in Sheffield. Sheffield United's captain Billy Sharp and goalkeeper Simon Moore even chose to grace us with their presence as well as numerous others from Sheffield's radio, magazine and online scenes.

The new restaurant is based conveniently next to the highest grossing cinema in the UK, Cineworld at Centretainment, just outside the center of Sheffield.

Check out the gallery below for some of my favourite shots! (Click to enlarge)

If you're interested in having your event covered and would like more information. Get in touch over on my Contact page.

Links

On top of this here blog that you're looking at. I've gone and made a twitter account. Check out what I've been up to (or what I've been tweeting in to Radio 4 shows) minute by minute... or just give me a follow! Click the link below to do that.

It's always great fun to work alongside Kathryn and Colin from 2 Boards and a Passion Theatre Company.

Having come across some minor last-minute issues, the show came across as a great success and was an absolute pleasure to photograph. Their rendition of Mr Vinegar had me laughing throughout. I can't wait for their next show!

Links

"There's no doubt about it, Michael, the world's getting smaller".

"Aye, that's global warmin'".

Do a quick google search for GDPR and you'll most likely get something that says:

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a legal framework that sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information of individuals within the European Union. The GDPR sets out the principles for data management and the rights of the individual.

... Not that that's what I did.

Seriously though... I've done a hell of a lot of research into this and tried to simplify it as best I can. Hopefully, this post will leave you bursting with confidence about how I definitely don't store your personal information in an old shoe box under my bed labelled 'do not touch' written on with a permanent marker.

... Not that that's what I do with it.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH, to give you peace of mind here are a few paragraphs on the steps I take to protect your data and to keep it entertaining, I've dropped in a few Alan Partridge quotes.

"Who’s Tom Donaldson?"

Your peace of mind is of the utmost importance to me which is why I take the following steps to protect your data...

Upon completion, hard copies of all information collected pre-event (times, dates, signed contracts etc) are stored in a secure location (definitely not folded in half in an old Filofax I came across in the spare room).

Digital copies of contracts are stored on an offline password protected external hard drive which itself is stored in a secure location.

Having handed over your photographs and you are 100% happy with them, digital copies of the photographs are stored on an offline, password protected external hard drive which itself is stored in a secure location. No hard copies (prints) are kept.

Only with your full consent will your pictures be used for marketing and at any point, if you change your mind, you can let me know and I will remove what you say.

When using 3rd party clients, to minimise any risk, only absolutely necessary information is passed on. I only use 3rd party clients that are well respected and established and are fully compliant with GDPR regulations.

To further reassure,

I try to be as transparent as possible. "Search me, Search me!". If you have any questions about why specific parts of information are collected, ask me and I'll give you the reason.

All the information I do collect is only kept for as long as is necessary.

If you have any more questions or queries about my GDPR policy, send me a message and I'll be in touch.

Once upon a time, I met a lady called Laura. It turns out that she's the official, best mermaid in the world 2018 (although she'll never admit it).

We've been trying to book in a photo shoot for such a long time now and finally, the time came that we were both available. When Laura (Luna Tide-Swell) and Yasmin (Athena Storm) arrived at the secret location, I couldn't wait to get shooting.

As some of you will know, I'm really into shooting on film and as the moment seemed slightly surreal and Cottingley fairy-esque, I decided to snap (intended) up the opportunity to use some!

For the camera geeks out there: I shot these on a Kodak Six-20 folding camera with Ilford HP5 (bought reduced from boots for £2.00 ((best bargain ever))) transferred from a 120 spool to a 600 spool.

Gallery

Click to enlarge!

“After three hundred years, thus shall we float into the kingdom of heaven,” said she. “And we may even get there sooner,” whispered one of her companions. “Unseen we can enter the houses of men, where there are children, and for every day on which we find a good child, who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. The child does not know, when we fly through the room, that we smile with joy at his good conduct, for we can count one year less of our three hundred years. But when we see a naughty or a wicked child, we shed tears of sorrow, and for every tear a day is added to our time of trial!”

What an amazing weekend of fun, food and festivities and to add to this, I had the pleasure of photographing it (as well as forcing myself to try the free samples, for research purposes only... promise).

I took far too many shots to post below so here are a few of the best moments. If you were there, chances are there's a photo of you or your stall.

I've wanted to do an Autumnal family shoot for a long while now. Thanks to Kim (whose mutual love for Autumn helped massively), Ash and Rory for giving me the opportunity.

After a brief shoot at home, we made our way over to one of Bury's many parks. Thanks to Kim's prepped wardrobe, they instantly meshed with the autumnal pallet and straight away, I was happy with the pictures being produced.

Last week brought around one of the meet ups with Sainsbury's, Hubbub and many of the country's community members to talk about wasting less, saving more and taking care of our planet's future, this time in the basement of Victoria Warehouse in Trafford.

Some of the guest speakers included 2013 Masterchef winner Natalie Coleman, Business Green's James Murray and Sheffield University's Christian Reynolds.

Earlier this year, Sophie from Big Day Blooms and Cakes got in touch and asked if I could capture her setting up Sara and Andrew's Chesterfield wedding. She was to supply the flowers for the bridal party, buttonholes for the groomsmen, the cake, dress the church for the ceremony and dress the reception room to await Andrew and Sara's return. A lot of work for one person but I couldn't recommend anyone better.

It turned out to be a rather action-packed day. The plan: Arrive at Hotel Van Dyk, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire and capture the pre-wedding shots. Next, go to Staveley Church (of which Sophie and I found out, there are two of within a stones throw of each other). After this, a quick visit to Andrew (groom) to drop off the buttonholes. Note to self, new housing estates aren't always on Google Maps.

More to follow...

Check out the images below and gallery at the bottom of this post.

Andrew's Buttonholes

Upon arrival at the church, we found that no-one was to be seen and when there are two venues with the same name, some quick thinking was required. Fortunately, the Vicar's phone number was on the door. After a quick call we were in and followed by a search around the church for the light switches we began setting up and shooting.

(L) Staveley Church pew decorations.

(R) Lavender with rosemary chair decorations.

After Staveley Church, it was back to the venue to cover Sophie dressing the reception venue at Hotel Van Dyk. Sophie added a subtle touch to the guests chairs that I hadn't come across before. The rosemary and lavender gave the room a warm and inviting scent and next to the table decorations, really tied the whole room together.

Here comes the twist in the plot; It got to the end of the ceremony and Andrew and Sara discovered their official photographer hadn't arrived. We got notice of this whilst dressing the Van Dyk reception room. After offering to cover the rest of the day for them, it turned out that one of their friends had their equipment with them and stepped in. As I was there, had all my equipment and as a kind gesture, I got a few snaps during the drinks reception for them.

After what seemed like an eventful morning and the odd downpour, everyone seemed to have comfortably settled in to the day. Congratulations to Andrew and Sara!

For more shots from the day, check out the gallery below!

Click the links below to find out more about the venue and Sophie's amazing cakes and flowers.

What a great day it turned out to be for taking pictures of cake and flowers with Sophie over at Cake Art. All the shots we took were captured at Cake Art HQ in Nottingham and with a bit of help from some left over landscaping materials (a shed wall lay on the ground for the blueberry macaroons background), we managed to capture some tantilising shots.

With a little bit of help from the friendly neighbours we managed to capture some lovely shots of the bouquets Sophie created. The option of a new location and some little helping hands gave us plenty more to work with. And they say to never work with Children. I disagree!

Thanks to Sophie for being so accommodating and providing such amazing subjects to photograph! Links soon!